


hold me so i don't slide back

by tryslora



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alive Erica Reyes, Alive Vernon Boyd & Erica Reyes, Anchors, Community: fullmoon_ficlet, Epilepsy, Gen, Seizures
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-29
Updated: 2015-05-29
Packaged: 2018-04-01 21:12:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 976
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4034773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tryslora/pseuds/tryslora
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Erica sees the sparks of light, tastes hyacinth and blood on her tongue, she knows the seizures are returning, no matter how much liar Derek says that’s impossible.</p>
            </blockquote>





	hold me so i don't slide back

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally written for Prompt #121 - Regress at fullmoon_ficlet. Many thanks to curi and kiss for inspiring this little bit about Erica. Which probably is nothing like what they meant, but yeah, it’s where I went! As always, I don’t own either the world or characters of Teen Wolf, I just like to play with them.

Erica has been a werewolf for six months the first time she sees the lights. They spark around her brightly, so quick she might have missed them if she didn’t _know_ them, if they didn’t horrify her down to her bones. A shiver slides through her and she sits down on the floor quickly, braces herself for the seizure as she tastes iron and lilac in the back of her mouth.

It doesn’t come, but she’s still shivering when she remembers that she’s a _werewolf_ now. She isn’t that girl anymore. The seizures have no control over her now, and they never will again.

#

“He lied,” she mutters, the image of flowers drifting in puddles of blood dogging her mind again two days later. She can’t get rid of the taste, can’t shift it away from her mouth. She drinks water, gulps it down hard and prays and it eventually goes. She breathes more easily, opens her eyes and pretends she only saw the sparks because of how _hard_ she scrunched her eyes shut.

“Who lied?” Cora falls onto the sofa next to her, knocks her shoulder into Erica’s and stays there, leaning comfortably against her. “Because if it’s Boyd, just say the word and I’ll knock some sense into him. If it’s Stiles, you’re stuck. We can’t train it out of him; he’s just a born asshole.”

Erica notices that Cora doesn’t mention Isaac or Scott because as much of a dick as Isaac is, he doesn’t lie to them, and Scott’s just… Scott. Then there’s Derek—lying liar Derek—but Cora’s loyal to her brother for all she says she hates him right now.

Erica gets that, she does. Siblinghood and family. But it doesn’t help her right now.

“No one,” she mutters, blinking the last of the sparkles away.

“Then what did he lie about?” Cora nudges her, leans a little harder, and Erica’s wolf rises, liking the feeling of a body close to hers.

She doesn’t want to answer, doesn’t want to admit to weakness. “Nothing,” she says, then she flashes a bright smile full of teeth, leans past Cora to get the remote so she can flick on the TV.

Cora doesn’t push for more information, and Erica is thankful. She almost thinks that Cora scared the seizure away, and she revels in the human contact that anchors her to this world.

#

“I didn’t lie.” Derek twists out of the way as Erica attacks, one arm going about her waist to catch her and toss her to the ground. “Werewolves don’t have epilepsy.”

It took everything she had to get the words out, and he’s treating it like it’s nothing. Like she doesn’t _know_ what’s happening in her own body.

She rolls to her feet, comes up in a crouch with her teeth bared, claws tipped against the ground. “I’m getting all the warning signs,” she growls. “I know what comes next.”

“It’s in your mind.” Derek holds out a hand and she’s tempted to claw him, to keep on fighting. His eyes flash, and she drops her gaze away, the wolf sliding from her skin in reaction. By the time he crouches in front of her, he is fully human again, his elbows resting on his knees, hands loose as he regards her. “Sometimes bitten wolves regress, Erica,” he says quietly. “You need to find your anchor again. You had anger before you were taken by the alpha pack, but it hasn’t been the same since we got back. Find something inside of you that keeps you stable, and you’ll be all wolf again. Fear is letting your memory fool you into believing you’re still weak. You’re _not_. Believe in yourself.”

She closes her eyes and swallows the scent of hyacinth down. “Right. Anchor. And if anger isn’t doing it for me anymore?”

“Figure out what does.” Derek claps her shoulder and brings her to her feet as he stands. “See what works for other people.”

Erica remembers the puppy-eyed way Scott put his faith in Allison, and the fury that drives Derek still. It worked for her, it _really_ worked for her, right up until she was so trapped that anger did nothing and couldn’t save her.

Cora and Boyd saved her then. But she won’t put her faith in someone else. She isn’t willing to make herself weak by needing someone that much.

#

“It’s not the person, it’s how they make you feel,” Boyd rumbles softly, his fingers stroking through her hair.

It doesn’t make sense, and she tells him so in no uncertain terms, until he’s laughing and gesturing for Cora to join them. Cora flops across them both, stretching out and curling into them.

“What are we talking about? Because you two look serious.”

“Anchors.” Erica’s skin burns where Cora’s fingers drift over her arm. She is on fire, and she sinks into the feeling, closing her eyes against the bright flicker of lights, letting them be subsumed by flame. 

“Mine is family.” Cora tilts her head back, reaches up to lightly touch Erica’s cheek. “Not a person, but the concept. The idea of being surrounded, of having pack. The knowledge that know matter where I go now, I have someone to come back to. I’ll always have my pack.”

Erica inhales, tastes leather on the air. She catches a whiff of chocolate and raspberry, and the remains of Boyd’s morning coffee. It pushes the hyacinth and blood away, leaves her whining for more, wolf rumbling happily. When Cora tugs Erica to lie down with her, head on her breast, Erica goes willingly.

“Like that,” Cora whispers, and it makes sense to her finally. 

It’s not Cora, it’s not Boyd, it’s not even liar-Derek. It’s all of them, it’s this, it’s belonging.

She sighs the sparking lights away, and she knows she’ll never see them again.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Come find me [on tumblr](http://tryslora.tumblr.com)!


End file.
